Montgomery Emerges in Sestina’s Absence
Kentucky wasn’t deep in the front court to begin with, so the extended absence of Nate Sestina would put added pressure on the other Wildcat bigs.
EJ Montgomery didn’t see it as pressure though. He saw it as an opportunity and a responsibility.
“I didn’t feel any pressure,” Montgomery said. “Nate was great for our team, so I just felt like I needed to step up and contribute to get a win.”
Montgomery – on the floor for a career-high 31 minutes – certainly did that Friday night in UK’s first game without Sestina in his first start since the season opener. The sophomore had a career high 16 points to go with eight rebounds as No. 9/11 Kentucky (6-1) showed few signs of malaise the after Thanksgiving in a 69-58 victory over UAB (4-2) – outside of the three 3-pointers UK gave up in the final 4:06 to make the score closer than it otherwise would have been.
Montgomery had watched fellow big man Nick Richards’ breakout through six games of the season, contributing in spots while missing three games with an ankle injury. Richards nearly identically matched his stat line with 16 points and nine rebounds of his own, but Friday was Montgomery’s turn to remind everyone of his talent.
“He was good today,” John Calipari said. “He was good.”
Montgomery helped UK lock down the defensive glass, a logical area for concern against a UAB squad ranked second nationally in offensive rebounding percentage prior to Friday according to kenpom.com. The Blazers managed only eight offensive rebounds against UK, a season low. In all, the Cats held a 39-26 rebounding edge over a team that was outrebounding opponents by an average of 13 per game prior to Friday.
For his role in that, Montgomery credited his sister, Brittni, who plays basketball professionally overseas and was in town for Friday’s game along with his other sister, Brandy. The three took advantage of a holiday spent together and have worked out together this week.
“She just texted me and was just like, ‘Try to find the ball first and just move around the defender and try your best to get every board,’ ” Montgomery said.
It was Montgomery’s diverse offensive game that really turned heads though. He scored in the post, finished around the basket – most on passes from Ashton Hagans, who had 12 assists – and even stepped out to make a couple jumpers.
“I’ve been working on it,” Montgomery said. “I’ll continue working on it. It wasn’t going down at first, but I’m not going to stop shooting. I’m just going to continue to shoot and just shoot every day.”
Montgomery had a reputation out of high school for being a solid shooter at 6-foot-10, but his jump shot hasn’t flashed consistently in his two seasons at UK.
“When he makes jump shots as smoothly as he did…it just adds another weapon to them offensively,” UAB head coach Robert Ehsan said. “When they can play the two bigs together, again, I think it adds another—both ends of the floor, it can be really tough to match.”
Though Ehsan might have focused on Montgomery’s makes, Coach Cal took notice of his last miss as the most encouraging sign from a big night.
“Remember the last one, the righty where he faded away?” Calipari said. “He walked right over and said, ‘I faded away.’ So he’s now self-evaluating. I said, ‘Great. Now you know what you did. Just don’t do it again. You know.’ “
Another step in Montgomery’s maturation, a process that might be sped along by the opportunity to play more in Sestina’s absence.
